


Farewell, my daughter

by Spiria



Category: Arc Rise Fantasia
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-07-25 09:29:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7527424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spiria/pseuds/Spiria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Cecille goes to sleep, it’s like losing another daughter. Serge is there to give Rastan a much needed moment.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote these for Friar, a lovely artist whose work can be found at tumblr (barefootfriar)!

Cecille spends the next five years with them, never growing out of her curls and dreams of lifelong heroism. When it’s time for her to embark for the future, Rastan and Serge ferry her over to the Lascarde Skywalk. She hadn’t asked for a great hero’s send-off, claiming that her second saga was just starting.

“When L’Arc and Ryfia wake up, I’ll be the same age as L’Arc! What do you think? Will they recognize me?”

“You’ve grown into a beautiful young woman, Cecille,” says Rastan, “but you’re still you. If nothing else, they’ll recognize your spirit.”

“Aw, you always know exactly what to say, Rastan - unlike _someone_ ,” says Cecille, shooting Serge a pointed look.

Serge laughs, dryly. “Oh, Minimal Lady, your wit grows evermore by the day . . . I pity those kids who have to bear the brunt of it exactly 495 years from now.“

Humming to herself, Cecille pretends not to hear him. “With a beautiful and older woman nearby, L’Arc had better stay strong to be faithful.”

“You won’t be older than L’Arc, though?” says Serge.

“I’m talking about Ryfia,” snaps Cecille.

“That’s enough, you two,” says Rastan. “Cecille, you said you have no regrets about going to sleep. Are you ready?”

Cecille straightens, again a picture of poise. “A hundred percent! I made sure to visit Leslie in Turemilia, too. All that’s left is to . . . well, go to bed.”

Serge nods. “Sleep well.”

“Thanks, Serge. You were the best petty gentleman thief I could have asked for,” says Cecille, not unkindly, to which Serge chuckles. She inclines her head to Rastan. “Of course, I can’t forget my best sidekick reformed from a dark, gritty past!”

As though shaken out of a reverie, Rastan blinks, but recovers quickly enough to say, “Take care. Look out for L’Arc and Ryfia for all of us.”

With an exuberant nod, Cecille walks with resolute determination for the giant doors within the Skywalk. She’d made it clear that she didn’t want them to see her enter the pod, and so Serge and Rastan stand outside, watching as the doors slide closed behind her retreating figure. True to her fashion, Cecille doesn’t look behind her - she only looks ahead.

Serge is the first to return to the lightship, beckoning for Rastan to follow suit. “Someone needs to pilot this thing, and it’s not going to be me,” he says, exaggerating the curvature of his spine. “Just getting here was hard enough. I can feel my bones creaking!”

Despite his best efforts to elicit a response, Rastan says nothing. Leaning against the wall of the lightship during their silent trip back to Diamant, Serge watches Rastan’s stiff back. “You didn’t want her to go, did you?” he asks at last.

“She’d made her mind up long before this day,” says Rastan, and Serge clicks his tongue.

“That’s not what I asked. Anyway, I get it. You’re afraid to admit it, but I know you looked at Cecille like a second daughter - and she just walked out of our lives. You may have supported her choice, but it’s all right to grieve.”

“Did you?” asks Rastan, still steering the lightship with his full visual attention.

“Did I what?”

“Did you grieve Selena after you learned the truth,” he clarifies.

“I tried not to, but Ryfia pointed out that I already was. Look, this isn’t about me. Losing someone is never easy, and it doesn’t go away; you and I know that better than anyone else. So while it’s just the two of us here . . . you can grieve, and I’ll turn a blind eye if that’s what you want.”

Declining to answer, Rastan continues to pilot the lightship for another brief, stretched moment before his shoulders hunch. Serge takes this as his cue and peels himself away from the wall.

“Let me pilot, Rastan.” He pauses, then adds: “I won’t look over my shoulder.”

Rastan relinquishes his command of the controls and wordlessly steps back, allowing Serge to fill the vacancy before the lightship can swerve. The rest of the trip falls back to relative silence, accompanied by the steady thrum of a smooth engine as Serge ferries the both of them back to Diamant. Behind Serge, Rastan closes his eyes, brings a fist to his chest, and bows his head.


	2. Farewell, my mother

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alfonse thinks about the mother only his brother had truly known.

One day amid his reformative reign, Alfonse remembers that he still has his mother. The realization is as unsettling as the intensity with which his heart thumps against the confines of his chest. Somewhere out there is the woman who’d given birth to him and never seen him again since.

There are few things he knows about his mother, the former queen. Gruene had a head of gold and eyes as blue as the seas surrounding Diamant - she must, because Weiss had never let go of Alfonse’s resemblance to the woman responsible for his existence. But if the resemblance went beyond appearances, then Gruene, too, must have an inky, withered black heart.

Before Clyde retires for the night that evening, Alfonse says, “You knew my mother, didn’t you?” At the man’s nod, he asks, “Can you tell me about her?”

In his early days, Alfonse had wanted to reach out to the poor woman who’d allowed jealousy to cloud her judgment. Once he became the emperor, he’d put her out of his mind altogether. In retrospect, if he’d thought about her then, he might have deemed her a waste of the world’s resources and erased her from the planet. But when the woman is a mystery, who was to say that he hadn’t?

With a generous amount of words, Clyde paints the portrait of a lady of porcelain grace and beauty - with another side just as vindictive as her innocent appearance, Alfonse adds in his head, when a sudden surge of jealousy strikes him sharply in the chest. Weiss had known Gruene for several precious years, and he had taken those memories with him when Flagship Percival had sunk.

He wonders why their father had never talked about his wife in much detail, as though she were a tabooed existence. It’s too late to ask now, but maybe that’s the way things are meant to be. He’d had his cake and eaten it; now he has neither a family nor friends, only a throne too large for one body.

“Your majesty,” says Clyde, drawing Alfonse’s attention, “if you ask, because you desire to see her . . . ”

Alfonse stops him there. “That’s enough, Clyde. Thank you, but I have no intention of seeking the woman my father had banished during his reign. I was just . . . ” Trailing off, his lips quirk into a tired, wry smile. “It’s the last of my father’s will, and I will honor it. I just wanted to be able to say goodbye.”

Gruene’s banishment is one of very few remaining markers of Mahat’s era, and Alfonse is no longer in the position to take after robbing Elena of her son. He will never meet the woman he can lovingly refer to as “mother.” This, he decides, is his punishment.


End file.
